The Goal: Attract Strangers And Turn Them Into Customers Who Promote Your Business

So if this is the goal, how do you get there? To get there, you have to understand the inbound marketing methodology. You have to understand where your potential customers are, what they're looking for, how they make buying decisions, and what it takes to make them happy. That's pretty much it, the rest is all execution, monitoring, analyzing metrics, and improving.

We've built a simple infographic to take you down the path from strangers to promoters.

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There's a lot to go into for deeper understanding here, you'll probably want to reference our library of posts for a dive into individual elements. I will provide a bit of context for each step along the path to help you undertand the use and application.

Step 1 - Attracting Strangers

People don't visit your website by accident, and they're rarely browsing. They come to your website for a reason, and from a source. You need to participate on and around the sources they'll likely be referred to your site from.

An active blog is one of the best sources of website traffic, you should be blogging on topics of interest and positioning yourself as an expert.

Social media outlets are where your prospects hang out, let them discover you there on their time and don't spam them.

Google is where they'll go when they're looking for what you do, better have a keyword strategy and active campaign if you want them to find you before your competition.

Step 2 -Converting Visitors to Leads

Visitors are looking for something, that's why they're visiting. Some end up on your site by accident, but what about the ones looking for answers? You need to put together a plan, based on who they are, what you offer, and what solution you represent.

Calls To Action advertise resources, tools, and guides you've created to answer their questions.

Forms are vital and must be present on all landing pages, controlling what information you require will effect your results as much as the quality of the offer.

Contacts are created on form completion and should include all of the intelligence you require to continue telling the story.

Step 3 -Turning Leads into Customers

Most visitors aren't ready to buy (massive misconception uncovered). They have interest but they're looking to do some homework. They may be looking for information on your industry or general solution or they may be trying to figure out if you're honest and capable. You need to figure out where they're at in the buying cycle and give them what they want when they want it.

Email marketing is alive and well, jjust not with mass messaging, sending personalized emails with the right message really works.

Workflows structure messages to ensure leads are nurtured through the buying cycle.

Scoring your leads for authority, need, and timing will help results.

Integration with sales tools helps to ensure transition from qualified lead into qualified sale.

Step 4 - Delighting Customers makes Promoters

Customers are great, but happy customers are even better. They generally trust you more, and certainly don't mind spreading the word. After all, everyone has pride in sharing good news and resources with their friends. You should try to be one of them.

Use social media again, to promote your clients and growing relationship.

Intelligence can be used to present custom content and offers for your current customers without blocking new visitors.

Email still plays an important role, presenting them with ongoing tools, resources, and valuable information.

Workflows tie right in, helping you measure your message frequency and customization to stand out from other vendors.

Now you've learned the basics of what it takes to attract, convert, nurture, close, and delight new customers. The trick is in the execution, and the tools. You can't execute on this plan without the right tools and marketing strategy, that's where this inbound marketing agency steps up.

Eric founded Revenue River in 2009 and has driven it into one of the most successful digital marketing agencies in the country. He wears many hats at Revenue River, while running the company is his job, he’s happy to be on the ground floor in the marketing and sales departments whenever the opportunity arises. On the rare occasions that Eric isn’t working, he’s somewhere in the high country stalking game or with his wife and two kids cheering on the Seahawks.